Friday, May 30, 2008

Dancing to the oldies

Anyone else out there having 80's flashbacks while looking at this quilt? A friend of my sister made this quilt several years ago. She had it basted and I guess she thought that someday she would hand quilt it. Here it is 12 years later and now it is done.
I don't know if you can see the lace around the edge of the fan - but I nearly drove myself off the deep end this morning after it got caught under the hopping foot. Pain in the backside!


But now it is done and will be taken to my mom who will be putting the binding on for Tammy. I told her I wold have to charge $50 an hour to apply binding because of my great hatred of binding! Mom kindly agreed to do it for her!

Off to pack for the beach!


Thursday, May 29, 2008

Quick quilt

This is a quilt for another one of my pregnant cousins. Her and her sister are both expecting their first baby sometime late this year. My mom pieced the top - mostly from my stash! She was kindly directed to Bonnie's site for the pattern.

Very sweet and simple!

I am debating on what to do next. I have a quilt sitting here waiting to be quilted for a friend of my sister. She made the quilt about 12 years ago and never got around to quilting it! It is basted so I will have to take it apart first. And then there is the commission baby quilt that is ready to be quilted, just have to find a backing.

My kids are spending a week or so at my parents' house in June. My dad and Ian are going to drive to Wisconsin to visit my grandfather. Mom and Maddie are going to stay home and get in trouble ! What am I going to do with a week to myself? Hopefully get a lot of tops quilted. Mom sent me an email yesterday saying that Joann's has batting on sale so I will have to stock up while I am up there.

What are you doing with your summer?


Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Copy Cat


This little quilt came together VERY quickly. It is the same pattern as Nina's latest QOV , just took a couple of rows off and left off the wide final border. I think it makes a cute baby quilt. This is a commission quilt for the same lady that hired me to make a baby quilt for her son's first child about two years ago. She wanted this one to be in the same colors, just a different pattern. So I used 30's repros again.
I am hoping to get this quilted and mailed off this week. I also want to get the top quilted for my cousin's baby. Then it will be taken back to my mom for the binding. Then we can discuss what to do for my other two cousins that are expecting. One of them is having baby # 2 - so we need to decide if we are gonna stick to our one quilt per family rule. Charlie is my one of only two cousins on my dad's side of the family. My other cousin is only 6 months older than my daughter. Yes, my first cousin. On my mom's side of the family I have 9 cousins - all within about 6 years in age of one another. That could be a lot of babies in a very short time! So we are thinking about breaking the rule for Charlie and then making sure that all the other quilts are very gender neutral. Mom is the top piece-er and then I quilt them on the long-arm.
What family traditions do you have regarding quilts?

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

May goal #2 - check!

Yeah! Goal number 2 is done! Just gotta slap the label on the back this afternoon and I can give Nicole the quilt tonight at bible class. I love how it turned out.
So I have got one week left to accomplish goal #3 - curtains for Ella's room. Ella is the baby I made this quilt for back in January. Her mama and I went shopping for the fabric several weeks before she was born - so yes, I am a little slow. Hopefully Ella has not yet noticed that her nursery has no curtains.
Once I get the curtains done I need to move on to the birthday challenge. I think I have already changed my mind about what I want I to do. By the time I get around to actually making it, maybe my mind will be changed back!
Only three days of school left! Our summer already seems to short with all we have planned. My sister's answer to this complaint would be "Home schooling!" - but since she refuses to offer a distance learning program, we will have to learn to accept our overly short summer. We are starting our summer off with a trip to Panama City Beach where hubby is participating in a mini triathlon. The kids are worried that he will have no energy to haul himself down to the beach afterwards! I am looking forward to some (read that as LOTS!) of fresh gulf shrimp. My favorite!
What are your plans for the summer?

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

I Will Survive!

Can't you just hear Gloria Gaynor singing that now? If you need a chuckle, go watch this video on YouTube.

Nines will be glad to know that I did indeed survive my day of getting the binding done on this huge quilt. It is gone - out of my home - out of my life. I got the binding done around 2 p.m. Took a very short nap and then put the label on it and took it to Jessica.

Thankfully she loved it. The only direction she had really given me was that she wanted it to be pink and brown. I was worried she wouldn't like the pattern I decided on.

Here is a picture of the finished product. It was so big I couldn't get a picture of the entire thing!

I am hoping to be able to finish the blue and brown baby quilt by Sunday. Nicole's baby shower is a week from Saturday, but we will be in Boston. So I am hoping to get done by Sunday in order to give it to her for Mother's Day!

Forced

Today is being spent forcing myself to work on the binding for the pink and brown quilt. So far I have trimmed the quilt and ironed the binding. Why am I sitting here surfing the net? Avoidance.

I thought by posting this maybe it would force me to be productive. Send me some encouraging thoughts or comments.

Or you can come help.

Please?

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Working, working, working....

The girl who commissioned this quilt is moving home to Birmingham next Friday - and I would really love to be done with (a.k.a - rid of) this by then. I am tired of it hanging over me. Maybe that's why I make so many baby quilts - because I lose interest by the time I am almost done with a big quilt. Anyway... I made myself work on quilting it yesterday - for a total of about 5 hours. Until I came to a point where I had a HUGE amount of fullness - just on one side. So in the midst of freaking out, I call Nina and beg her to tele-transport herself down to my house and help me. I even said "PLEASE" several times. Still a no-go.


Can you see all that fullness? And that is after I quilted it! The next row is just as bad. All I can figure out is that the pieced blocks are stretching. Only one, maybe two, more passes to go. And then I can move on to my favorite part, binding this monster. Can you hear the sarcasm in my voice? Good.



You can tell by the amount of batting hanging off the bottom that I am almost done. Unless I made a huge mistake measuring the batting....which is entirely possible! Anyone want to come help put the binding on?

UPDATE: 9:45 pm - it id DONE!!! Unpinned and waiting to be trimmed and bound.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Another top in need of quilting!

My question for you today is : Is this quilt finished? Or does it need another border? Size-wise it is big enough to be finished, but I don't know if it looks finished.
What do you think?

I have plenty of fabric to put another border around it. What should I do?



Waiting anxiously for all of your opinions!

Current vote: 14 votes for adding a border

Thanks for all of the sweet comments!